Read this whole thread. Glad I'm going to fly with Mike Seager a bunch before I try and fly my 8. I've only got about 20 hours recent tailwheel time in a Citabria.. but I couldn't resist the RV8 when I had the chance.. Hoping all goes well in about a month..

I now know I am not alone in the initial ability to land my RV-6 without bouncing.

I've been struggling with landing 2' in the air during my transition training. It's frustrating because I feel like I'm just repeating my mistakes. I can't seem to find a good reference to my altitude once I start the round-out, and I'm consistently over-controlling and hunting for the ground on final (this is in Mike Seager's RV7). I'm confident I'll get it figured out, but man it's frustrating right now.

I've been struggling with landing 2' in the air during my transition training. It's frustrating because I feel like I'm just repeating my mistakes. I can't seem to find a good reference to my altitude once I start the round-out, and I'm consistently over-controlling and hunting for the ground on final (this is in Mike Seager's RV7). I'm confident I'll get it figured out, but man it's frustrating right now.

I am by no means any kind of an authority, but it helps to focus on the other end of the runway on short final. If you're used to larger planes that don't react to every little gust of wind like these do, it's easy to get into over controlling, especially when you're looking at the runway just in front of the plane.

One other little trick that my hangar mate (retired carrier pilot) told me was to take the plane out on the runway and try to burn the sight picture into your mind as to what it looks like as you sit there in a 3 point attitude. I haven't done that as much yet, but I plan to. My landings are still inconsistent. A couple of greasers and then a couple of bouncers. It's all a part of the process and it's fun because it's an achievable goal.

Ultimately what did it for me was to improve my scan during the flare and look down the side of the nose a bit to get a better altitude reference. I'm still by no means relaxed and nailing every landing, but I'm passable, and not abusing the landing gear (mostly).

Was really nice to get that first flight in my own RV-8 today though.. that's for sure!

I've been struggling with landing 2' in the air during my transition training. It's frustrating because I feel like I'm just repeating my mistakes. I can't seem to find a good reference to my altitude once I start the round-out, and I'm consistently over-controlling and hunting for the ground on final (this is in Mike Seager's RV7). I'm confident I'll get it figured out, but man it's frustrating right now.

I just had a remarkably similar experience while doing some training with Mike. Since my 8 won't be finished until spring I'm going to go back for another 3 days and hopefully clean some things up.

He absolutely is! I felt like I was really abusing his RV-7 at times, but he remained cool and collected and educating the entire time. I will say after spending 3 days with Mike that my initial flights in my 8 were an absolute non-issue. I now have about 25 landings in mine, and am feeling very confident with it, with the caveat that I'm expecting it to make a run for the weeds at any moment so not getting complacent with it..

Strikes were all the rage for the RV-8 before folks figured out that good intersection fairings did the same thing and with lower drag - that was more than about a dozen years ago. So if you like them and are happy, that’s fine....but for folks building today, make (or install) intersection fairings and you can forgo the little things....

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